The Digital Devil Story: Megami Tensei Experience 

Dude you rule

In defense of "use computer to summon demons", the first book describes how Nakajima had studied old books of demon summoning. He realized that performing a demon summoning ritual - specifically the part about running through a complex set of instructions on what to chant and the like - is basically a low tech version of running a computer program. Do it correctly, and a thing happens (in this case, summoning a demon). It's processing information, and Nakajima realized the computer could do that faster, and with much less preparation on the part of the ritualist. So it's less like computers being magic, and more like using a computer to automate the casting of a spell. I found it very clever.

IIRC, the reason the author thought of the whole "computer can summon demons" thing was because of astronomy. Basically, he was super into astronomy ever since childhood, and worked on making astronomical computer programs (simulating planetary movements, shit like that) in adulthood. At one point, he read about Western black magic traditions and how they were heavily linked to astronomy (doing a ritual when the planets align or when Venus is in the sky or whatever), and thought "well, computers can simulate that stuff really accurately, so what happens if you tried to do that ritual with a computer?" And thus, the Demon Summoning Program was born.

I watched the OVA and the funniest thing to me was how Nakajima did the "tragically scream the name of the person who just died" take for Yumiko and I was like "Dude, you barely talked to her and then brutally tried to sacrifice her 10 minutes ago!". And then he gets flashbacks of the "good times" with Yumiko, which include her being pushed and tentacled.

"you're in Micon city on the 8th floor of Daedalus tower, and you better get familiar with this room because you're gonna be back here an awful lot." when he wrote that Marsh had no clue just how prophetic that would be for him

Canonically, the devil summoner program was written in Fortran...frankly, THAT'S the real Black Magic.

...I have never seen a game that is a better example of "Old RPGs hate you" This game loves to cause you pain at every turn There's old school length extension a then there's fucking sadism

Tip for anyone bat shit crazy enough to attempt this game: Every boss in this game has no elemental weakness. They take half damage from Physical and Electricity, 1/3 damage from Expel, 1/4 from Ice and Force, and reflect Fire. This basically means just have Yumiko on support since she basically just learns fire.

Dude in the 80s summons a demon on his computer and 30 years later in the same franchise, a different guy gets arrested for assault, kills god, and claps the cheeks of his homeroom teacher. What a series.

The third one sounds like as if Go Nagai gave up on devilman half way through and just tossed up a conclusion so that he could get more time to work on mazinger.

You missed the part in the third novel where after killing Nakajima, Yumiko commits suicide. Because y’know, can’t let anyone get a happy ending in Megaten!!

I love how Nakajima is a Whitesnake fan

"Dad, what is a computer?" "It's magic Joel, its magic."

It's been a while but here's a fun fact that just came out not too long ago. The Author admitted he made the books because he thought of the legend of Izanagi and Izanami and thought "Wow, Izanagi's a coward. I simply would have done it differently."

“Man smt 3 nocturne is hard” Marsh: *Ptsd of Hell grinding in megami tensei*

"you will find me dead before me playing this game again" Aged like milk

Someone give this man the awars for the most patient masochist of 2020

To resume the second book : >The professor that helps nakajima is like the director of a group of demon summoning that nakajima is part of and the police officer is just a police officer helping because they can't ignore the shit happening and nakajima convinces the police about demons by cerberus >Seth is summoned to earth by the hand of the brother of the professor, the dude is also a demon summoner but bad and wants to wreck shit, he does a pact with seth so he is safe (a important thing that nakajima didn't know about and that's why Loki turned on him, he had no contract) >The bad dude, the summoner, starts controlling people in the japanese gov by using seth powers but i don't remember why, it amounts to pretty much nothing if i remember correctly >The baddies send ohara to make some orphans, and yumiko gets captured >A bunch of days pass while the good guys look for yumiko, nakajima trains with the sword >Seth goes to a town and starts fusing people in a flesh tower, he does that to make a electromagnetic field that he needs to be fully summoned and yumiko is at the center of the tower >The good guys go to the place because is pretty obvious that thousands of people are gathering (naked) in a flesh tower >The good guys rush to the scene and find the place full of demons but nothing happens >They get to the tower and shit hits the fan when the summoner appears fused with a demon snake >blam blam blam slash slash slash >the police officer is the reincarnation of a moon god, dude transforms into the god for like 5 minutes to give nakajima and the professor a chance to escape, gets killed >nakajima goes to the tomb of izanami and she gives him the robe that allows him to fly so he can fight seth at the top of the tower, however, the robe is the only link that she has to the material world so she goes puff and dissapears >the professor tells nakajima that a nuke will do but nakajima refuses and says that is better to fully summon seth in space, international shenanigans ensue (no really) because only the americans have a satellite with a electromagnetic field strong enough to pull off the move and they fear that ruskies misinterpret the situation. They do it anyways >Nakajima goes to the tower and fights seth to distract him >Seth pops in the space and the tower collapses >slash slash slash >Seth dies and the satellite explodes but leaves a hole to the demon world >"oh shit" >End of the book

_Of course_ twinky protagonists have been in the series since the very beginning. Makes the response to the SMT5 protagonist even funnier.

Hard to find this level of human suffering outside of liveleak. Thanks, Marsh!

“You’ll find me dead before I play this game again.” That was a good joke. Bro has excellent dramatic irony skills.

It's crazy to think that without this 80s Malware Death Note edgy tale, we'd never have Persona 5 fans asking for Switch ports on Twitter

11:08-11:34 The reason computers and programming are used to summon demons in this series is because the book's author, Aya Nishitani, noticed that zodiac mysticism and computer simulation were often used for the same thing: simulating and predicting the movement of the stars in the sky. He figured "ok if these pagans think you summon demons with like Jupiter and Scorpio and stuff, and computers are really good at tracking the movement of Jupiter and Scorpio... what if computers are really good at summoning demons?" And that's why we have the COMP in both the novels, and all the games afterward

dds:mt impresses me because it was released a year after Dragon Quest 1 and despite some of the rougher game design decisions it is still clearly a megaten game. like the fact so many rudimentary systems that would later be perfected with SMT 1 (which added even more ahead of their time game design choices) are so identifiably there demon negotiation being described as "more simplified" while still functioning similarly enough you could just pick it up is really impressive and i think atlus deserves props.

Loki probably used the bank becasue in the book it's kinda described that you need good hardware/supercomputers and lots of ram to summon him. Maybe a Japanese bank had the infrastructure?

I gotta slightly disagree with one take from this video. I still find the idea of a demon summoning program super compelling. The idea of all the incantations and seals being executed on a program in a matter of seconds is still rad, and makes some type of sense. I can already see the linked lists and logic needed for different demons. It's super cool.

I was bullied, but even I think this guy is pretty messed up. *He got a demon to violate his teacher!*

Reuploaded because the audio sounded like total ass before. Well, this was a long time in the making, and it's finally done. Nakajima's story isn't always a pretty one, but I came to really like it and overall I'm glad I went through the effort of reading, watching, and playing all of this. MT1 is a tough game, and I often wanted to quit, but I pushed through and here we are. Thanks to all who check this out, next up I'll probably look at Shin Megami Tensei: NINE or Last Bible.

That first MSX game has a built in depiction of a bullied high schooler's constant anxiety. Just a little dialogue that says "BE FOUND" every time you feel someone's eyes on you.

Digital devil story small details you forgot: SPOILERS From the megaten wiki Yumiko killed herself after nakajima died. Izanami picks up his corpse and goes to bury it Nakajima appears to go crazy both from the shock and that"a Demon whispers in his ear" the existence of art of lucifer vs izanami might be because lucifer influenced him There are SIX sequel novels to the original trilogy .about the fight with lucifer.. But there isnt really a summary of any of them According to tv tropes, the Main characters still get Downer endings

Nakajima's backstory reminds me a lot of Hazama. I have a feeling if this was set in America... let's just say they wouldn't be using demons.

Dope video, and お疲れさまでした for all the suffering. This channel deserves more attention from us bloodsucking megaten fans. I have two metric tons of stuff to say about the first game, so here's my doctoral thesis. Maybe this audience can learn a thing or two from my shared experience. 1: 40:28 Yeah, every time you attempt the mask thing, you gotta reset the game state completely. If you walk back right after being teleported to the start town and WITHOUT getting a password and resetting the console, Izanami doesn't show up again. This was some hot bullshit. Can't provide any pictures of my face though. 1.5: And better yet, one thing you didn't mention is that Izanami is OPTIONAL. She's not a fail state! All she does is give you her cloak that nullifies the damage from the fire walls, and by the time you've figured her shit out (there are no hints for what order the gems go in, so it'll be a couple of times without a guide!) you won't have any reason to be in that dungeon anyway, or you'll be more than able to manage the damage with the party healing spell. Skipping her doesn't lock you out of the end of the game or even change the ending, even though the manual kept hyping up how _"you have to save Izanami from Lucifer's imprisonment!!",_ so you're better off just listening to her cool theme for a bit and then dumping her dog ass. Goddamn. 2: In this game, Tetraja protects you from the level drain for one encounter; Yumiko never learns it but I found it to be oddly common in the demon fusion pool. It's an important counter for Set, and I guess you can use it before running away from the other (worthless) level-draining demons to be safe. _It'd be cool if the manual TOLD you what it actually does though!!_ Basically this level drain shit was taken from older western dungeon crawlers like Wizardry that were designed around being cheap and unpredictable, but it just seems stupid in a much simpler and longer game like this one. Thankfully they'd left all that behind by the 90s when JRPGs had established their own identity as less torturous. 3: Did you do any of your own mapping for this game? That was my biggest time sink and source of fun, and I think taking my time with that meant the bosses' difficulty curve was less ass, so maybe "getting lost" in the dungeons actually is the answer. I certainly never spent any time sitting in one corner of hell for hours grinding stats up. The end of the manual advertises that this is a classic-style RPG you're supposed to whip out the graph paper for, and its dungeons are more sprawling than probably anything else in the megaten series, meaning there's a lot of mapping to do to make sure you've seen everything and talked to everyone. The Kyuuyaku version's grind curve was apparently a lot shallower and the various modernizations the game received (like SMT1/2-style automapping) were probably the reason for that adjustment. 3.5: That being said, there were way too many empty rooms in this game, and not enough stuff to discover, for the game to reach the heights that stuff like gold-box AD&D did. That was my biggest problem; if you try and map the whole thing, it'll waste your time often. It's like SNES SMT stretched thin over a classic dungeon-crawler's skeleton. Eeugh. 4: I just wanna mention for those unaware that this game has a New Cycle mode, triggered if you wait on the game end screen for a while and then immediately start a new game. It moves the heretic's manors/recovery springs/shops around to hostile areas and doubles the HP of all enemies. Have fun sleeping tonight! Bonus fun fact, I think this was according to some artbook but it escapes me. Apparently Kazuma Kaneko played this game before he worked at Atlus (without knowing who developed it, since it was just a NAMCOT game), and he enjoyed it. Guess we all like getting dicked around by demonic tubs of HP. And it was a good thing he was into it, because megaten 2 is a gem and his spritework for it is some of the coolest shit I've seen in an 8 bit game, like straight-up mindblowing. Translator Tom tweeted that he's working to patch the Famicom version again, so hopefully its atmosphere, weird writing charm, and excellent chiptunes will be available to English-speaking audiences soon in its original package. Thanks again for selling your sanity!

Man, to think Steven Hawking would blatantly steal a teenager's work and get away with it because hes dead

U know when you said "guess where the white crystal is" my first guess was the beginning of the game lol

3:48 never have I ever meant these words with such intensity before: _Didn't see _*_that_*_ comin'._

You know, some aspects about Nakajima's initial character sort of reminds me of Seto Kaiba from Yu-Gi-Oh. Hear me out on this one: He's an ace student and a rich prick who is proud of his superior mind, has a shitty family life, and is dismissive to everybody. Nakajima also happens to be a tech wiz who comes up with an elaborate program involving supernatural creatures. This last point also ties Nakajima to a cycle caused by the actions of his past life. I know that after the story's first act, Nakajima's character arc goes to a completely different direction to Kaiba's, but the similarities are worth pointing out. Kazuki Takahashi was in his 20's by the time the novels were released, so he might have been a fan.

As insane as this sounds: You've convinced me to go aaaaaaaall the way through the entire main line franchise, starting with Megami Tensei 1. Granted, I'm using Kyuuyaku Megami Tensei for the NES era titles, but still ;)

You should try to publish this content in the megaten subreddit or other online SMT communities so more people could know about all this media most fans haven't even touched. Your suffering needs to be compensated in some way. Anyways, amazing video, kind of similar to the two you made about If..., and I mean it in a good way because both of them were amazing and also one of the only content we have about these kind of "obscure" entries.

I've never heard of Megami Tensei or anything related, but this has got to be one of the coolest videos I've ever seen. As a total stranger to the series / game / anime / story / whatever, I think you did an excellent job explaining the crazy story and the insane gameplay. It really felt like I was suffering with you - it is easy to say that a game is difficult, but when you went beyond that by describing your exact frustrations. It would be heartwarming to watch more of these kinds of videos, where I am able to temporarily view another universe through the lens of someone who seems to know what they are doing. Encore! More soul-wrenching gameplay and bizarre stories! Subscribed and liked =)

"You're gonna run around in mazes that change color every once in a while" so tartarus?

"Then she dies again" *Starts playing calm music*

"You'll find me dead before I play this again" I have this odd feeling that will be sooner than we think. Jokes aside the algorithm brought me to your If review and I have been enjoying your stuff! Already subbed!

Ya know, Nakajima's journey from bullied sociopath proto-school shooter to super cool hero didn't... didn't age very well Like at all Also your narration's hilarious

To be honest, I've read the 2 translated books and I thought that, besides the craziness of being able to write a code able to summon demons and going into space, things are somewhat interesting and worth a reading. Knowing that Nakajima dies in the third book, IMO, makes a lot of sense and I'm kinda glad that happened. Although the "let's kill your father in front of you" was kinda uncessary and was put there just to have a little more of shock value, letting an end like this being written is quite refreshing, even more so when we already know how Nakajima was quite the prick before shit hit the fan. His crimes had to be punished at some point so I guess that's the reasoning behind his death..

I get the distinct impression that the author hated the games and wrote that third book to make everyone miserable.

13:43 This is The Last of Us 2 before that was a thing! Also reminds me of the Final Fantasy X - 3 book, where Tidus gets killed by a blitzball that's actually a bomb.

permanently deleveling you is one of the worst concept I have heard for rpgs. Correction: uncontrollable deleveling in encounters by skills/magic .

This sounds like it was made by demons that used old school dnd modules as their reference in fair game design

This is my new favorite Megaten channel!

To mega ultra nerd out for a sec, that one line about Nakajima being feminine is similar to how Genji is described in The Tale of Genji, a Heian Japanese epic about a Japanese prince and his escapades in the world of then-contemporary nobility. Doesn't have anything to do with SMT, demons, or anything more than a potential Japanese cultural standard of beauty in men. That is all.

Ngl dude, I really do appreciate you making these videos, especially on megaten games with little to no documentation online, Hell, if you livestreamed the playthrough while you got footage, I would be watching them live if I could lol. And thanks for not quitting while you were almost at the top, you really are a trooper. Still, I'm glad you got to the franchise that has my favourite OST out of all the megaten games, hopefully you check out the arrange version where they use actual instruments for the tracks and you can hear them in their true glory.. Also, set using a /smiling/ move? Perhaps he... /s m i r k e d/ at you and dropped your level? I know you said you wouldn't do Kyuuyaku, but I would love to see you try that game at some point, it really is a much better experience than the OG DDS. Keep up the rad work~

Book One and OVA - 0:55 Book Two - 9:24 Book Three - 12:00 Telenet Megami Tensei - 14:20 Atlus Megami Tensei - 19:14

5:05 so I only watched the anime but my impression from the bank scene was that the bank was the only place close by that had an advanced enough computer for Loki to come through at and that is why it was important. But I'm not really sure the anime cut around a lot.

After all the sh!t Nakajima went through in the novels he should be a summonable demon in later installments.

I fucking love when people go through fucking sluggish grinds and insanely outdated mechanics and graphics in a language I don't understand so I don't have to. This satisfies my curiosity fully and completely, thank you so much. Subscribing 'cause I'm loving this content.

This was a great look at the primordial soup of Megaten. I knew about the books and the OVA but I didn't know there was a third one where Nakajima fucking croaks lol. I like your delivery a lot too, reminds me of someone like Cybershell.

Describing the plot of the first book is fun, if only to see the looks on their faces. ESPECIALLY if they're already SMT and/or Persona fans.

You are an actual MVP for these videos, I have seen videos on Kyuyaku Megami Tensei but never the original NES Megami Tensei and it’s sequel, and honestly, despite the actual torture it puts you through, I prefer the NES version because not only is it where it all started, but I feel the limitations of the NES heavily assisted in the mood of the game, from the eerie music to the 8-bit sprites leaving a lot to the imagination, like idk about you but even common enemies look scary, such as the blank stare of gnomes I find genuinely creepy, especially with their lack of pupils

Nakajima, from school genius to demon slayer... In space!

I'm glad RU-vid started recommending your videos, I'm new to Megami Tensei games and started playing the most famous titles and watched the OVA, enjoying it very much so far. Watching people talk about this franchise just makes me want to play more! I would like to see your channel grow so more people could enjoy it too :)

In order to pull the Hinokagutsuchi you actually need that the combination of Nakajima's Strength, Vitality, Speed and Magic is higher than a certain value, which I don't remember right now. But I do remember that as long as you're not wasting Nakajima's levels on Luck, you can hit the benchmark by the end of Bien, right after you beat Medusa. Which it means that if you know the Hinokagutsuchi's secret (cast Mappara on a certain room), you can get the sword right after you free Bien! It's a speedrun trick that honestly can also help on casual playthrough to ease the tedious grinding. Bear in mind, this only works on the NES version. For the SNES remake, you actually need to make it to the Sea of Flames and grab that Demon within a Bottle, or else the secret door won't open even if you know the trick.

This video was a legitimate masterpiece, dude. Incredibly well done and entertaining throughout, with some really amazing humor.

I'm sad it took me this long to find your channel. But you're amazing!

I thought you had more of these videos on your channel but now I'm sad and hungry for more content like this. I like the rythm and the overall structure, you actually made me interested in Megami Tensei games. Count me in for future content! Please do more!

Great video! I love whenever these obscure corners of the franchise are discussed and being played.

I'd very much like a remake of Atlus' Megami Tensei. Give it an Etrian Odyssey Untold treatment.

I have been trying to manifest this exact video for so long, thank you so much for putting thus together

Your recent videos about full Megaten games experiences are great. I can't wait for more!

Technically there is a book being almost written for Digital devil saga but the writer got sick and just winged it for the game

This video and channel makes me happy. Thanks for making classic MegaTen interesting!

LOVE these long format SMT videos, awesome job, really interesting stuff 👍👍

I've been looking for videos that breakdown these games and story's for like a week. Thank God the search is over. Great videos

I TURNED MYSELF INTO A DEMON NAKAJIMA, I'M DEMON RICK!!!!!!!!!

Incredible video! I've decided to start MT franchise in launch order and had read the first 2 novels and played both NES games(actually found your channel while searching for SMTIf videos since I started it recently), and you do a perfect essay in every video of yours

This video is what got me into Marsh's content

Based and Megami Tensei

Computers summoning demons was always the best idea of SMT to me. Why wouldn't you be able to digitally draw a summoning circle and automate seances?

Really interesting video, thank you for suffering through this for us.

Just finished the playlist, can't wait for more from ya!

"Strap on some goggles because we're about to take a deep dive into some shit" This guy is the weeb AVGN I love him.

The third novel seems like the author started to really hate the game adaption. It sounds incredibly similar to what happened with the Popular Witcher Series author. The games were huge hits but the author hates them for some reason. I don't quite comprehend this weird attitude.

I first watched the OVA and then the book and god damn I did not know what I was getting into. Like I know Megaten is weird, but this was just..... interesting to say the least. But enjoyed it a lot though.

This video is a great summary of events in the first 3 novels, OVA and games. Thanks for the content :)

Fun fact: Everything after Bien (technically the rotting sea of flames but you don't need to complete it) is entirely optional. All you need to beat the game is Rick's bracelet, and the White Dragon Gem. Since you can fly Bien to the final dungeon right away and savescum until you've power leveled enough to beat Lucifer.

This was a great video. Your whole channel is great.

Long story short: Stay away from the demon in your computer or else your life turns into a something out of a fan fiction.

Dude I just found your channel last night and I'm going through a rabbit hole of your content and loving every second of it! You're awesome dude! Personally I never read the books but caught the fly part and teacher part right away. Visually it represents it quite well. But then again not a lot of people are that perceptive.

Those Zeta Gundam looking character desgins.

i hope he sees this and realizes these kind of videos do better because i really like them , i even shared them with a friend. do what you want with your channel i just wanted you to know that i liked this.

This is legit like the 15th time i've come back to this video. Not only is it genuinely a really good video but I'm also using it as a soft guide for my own personal playthrough of the snes remake of megaten 1 and 2! Hope your vid inspires others to do the same since (maybe the snes version moreso than the original lol) it's actually pretty good! EDIT: A pro-tip for anyone playing Kyuyaku. After beating Minotaur, on the floor you get Garu's shield there is a demon (in the english patch it's called the Kaiju BUG iirc) that will always spawn in the room just outside of the elevator. Anyways, the important thing is that the demon gives like 200-300 EXP for a while. If you managed to beat Minotaur, Yumiko should have the good fire spell by this point. So spam it to quickly kill the demon, leave the room as if you are going back to the elevator, then go back in to fight the same demon again and grind until Yumiko is just about out of magic, then take the elevator and heal up and continue until you feel like you are at a high enough level or until the demon starts giving crap exp. Then you should be pretty good to go to Bien! Best of luck.

thanks for you effort marsh!

Your commentary is fucking hilarious and i love how your videos have a lot of good details about SMT i can’t find anywhere else, so thank you so very much for these videos

Played Kyuuyaku last year, around December-time. I'm glad someone shares my ire at the fucking level reducing spells and I think the whole door demon spawning thing carried over to that remake.

This was great, you really deserve more views and subs!

Great video, cant wait for next videos like this about rest of the series :)

I found this video like yesterday and I’ve already watched it three times. Please YHVH please keep doing these. I’d love to see you cover some of the other megaten games

Man, i RU-vid algorithm brought me here, and i just have to congratulate you!!! You went all this pain, so the rest of us won't. You're the true messiah

11:07-11:35 pc master race and supercomputers summoning gods and the evil undead is real just like the zombies from the resident evil games.

good job dude. that was a heck of a grind. i love having more people talk about smt. thanks for doing it.

Your experience videos are great, I'm looking forward to the next one!